So my friend's computer has had issues with getting updates since day 1. I didn't really know why, but at the time a lot of the responses online was to leave it running overnight and hope for the best.

Eventually, my computers became victim to the same issue. For months, Windows Update would get stuck on the "Checking for updates..." or hang when trying to download the updates.

It also pegs a CPU core to almost 100% usage (or 25% in quad cores and 50% in dual cores) under the process "svchost.exe" while it searches aimlessly, wasting valuable battery life and compute cycles on something that should be sitting quietly in the background.

Note: svchost.exe is used to host many services, but in my case after stopping the "Windows Update" service, the CPU spike stopped. If this isn't the case for you, then you have another problem.

I stumbled upon some information by chance which described the issues. Apparently there were some changes to Windows Updates which fixes these issues, but only made available through optional rollup patches.

Great logic there Microsoft. You've fix your updater but made it optional, so anyone who uses it has to go on a wild goose chase in order to get it working.

These rollup patches come in a form of rollup updates, which basically mean they're a monthly service pack.

Before you continue... Service Pack 1 is required!

Make sure you're on Windows 7 SP1!

Right click on "My Computer" and select Properties. That'll give you the service pack information under "Windows edition".

And depending on how long your updater has been broken for, you'll also need the April 2015 service servicing stack update. For most people this shouldn't be a problem. Only download and install it the fix process complains.